The technology multinational Apple has filed an appeal before the General Court of the European Union against the fine of 1.8 billion euros that the European Commission imposed on it last March for abuse of position in the distribution of streaming music by preventing platforms from Competitors like Spotify inform iOS users of alternative subscriptions outside of the App Store. The appeal before the first instance of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) was presented last Thursday although it did not emerge until this week, when it was registered in the High Court, with no date for the decision. Asked this Thursday about this, the vice president of the European Commission in charge of Competition, Margrethe Vestager, limited herself to saying that the company has the right to appeal and that the community services are prepared to defend a case that she has defined as “solid.” “. Last March, Brussels imposed the sanction against Apple for the restrictions that it imposed for years in the streaming market thanks to the abuse of the dominant position it enjoyed from its ‘Apple Store’. Vestager then warned that preventing developers from informing consumers about “alternative and cheaper” offers available outside the Apple ecosystem” was not only an “illegal” practice, but had an impact on “millions of European consumers.” ” that they could not “freely choose” which services to contract. The case dates back to 2022, when Brussels accused the company of acting as a “gatekeeper” of access to applications and abusing a dominant position in the music distribution market in ‘streaming’. Brussels describes “unfair practices” by the North American company while for a decade it imposed restrictions that were “neither necessary nor proportionate” to protect its commercial interests and that meant that many iOS users had to pay. “clearly higher prices” for its music subscriptions due to the commission imposed by Apple on developers. through Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism and those available elsewhere. The third issue for which Brussels fined Apple has to do with the company preventing alternative developers from including links in their applications that take iOS users to the application developer’s website where alternative subscriptions can be purchased. . It also prevented app developers from contacting their own newly acquired users, for example by email, to inform them of alternative pricing options after setting up an account.
